Fat mice benefit from red-wine extract, study says

Seth Borenstein, The Associated Press

Published 9:00 pm, Wednesday, November 1, 2006

WASHINGTON -- Obese mice on a high-fat diet got the benefits of being thin -- living healthier, longer lives -- without the pain of dieting when they consumed huge doses of red-wine extract, according to a new study.

It's far too early to know if this would work in people, scientists said. But several were excited by the findings, calling it promising and even "spectacular."

Fat-related deaths dropped 31 percent for obese mice on the supplement, compared to fat mice that got no treatment. The mice that got the wine extract also lived longer than expected, the study showed.

Astoundingly, the organs of the treated fat mice looked normal when they shouldn't have, said Dr. David Sinclair of Harvard Medical School. Sinclair, the study's lead author, said other preliminary work still under way shows the wine ingredient has promise in extending the lives of normal-size mice, too.

Sinclair has a financial stake in the research. He is co-founder of a pharmaceutical firm, Sirtris Pharmaceuticals Inc. of Cambridge, Mass., that is testing to see if the extract can safely be used to treat diabetics.

For years, red wine has been linked to numerous health benefits. But the new study, published online in the journal Nature today, shows that mice given ultrahigh doses of resveratrol can get the good effects of cutting calories without actually doing it.

"If we're right about this, it would mean you could have the benefit of restricting calories without having to feel hungry," Sinclair said. "It's the Holy Grail of aging research."

Resveratrol, produced when plants are under stress, is found in the skin of grapes and in other plants, including peanuts and some berries.

The 55 resveratrol-treated obese mice were on a high-calorie diet -- what one scientist called a "McDonald's diet." Not only were they about as healthy as normal mice, they also were as agile and active on exercise equipment as their lean cousins, demonstrating a normal quality of life that was unexpected for such obese creatures, said study co-author Rafael de Cabo of the Institute on Aging.

"These fat old mice can perform as well on this skill test as young lean mice," Sinclair said.

The only major body measurement that didn't improve -- aside from weight -- was cholesterol, and that didn't seem to matter in the overall health of the mice, Sinclair said.

The study is so promising that the aging institute this week is strongly considering a repeat of the experiment with rhesus monkeys, a closer match to humans, said institute director Dr. Richard Hodes.

He cautions that people shouldn't start taking non-regulated resveratrol supplements until safety issues have been adequately addressed.

Supplements are available at health-food stores and online, but not at dose levels equivalent to what the mice got -- about 100 bottles of wine a day in humans.

Sirtris Pharmaceuticals is working on a high-dose resveratrol pill that, unlike unregulated supplements on the market now, would be used as a drug and require Food and Drug Administration approval, said company chief executive officer Dr. Christoph Westphal. That development and federal approval is about five years away, he said.

Sirtris is aiming the research at diseases of aging, which includes diabetes.

Sinclair's results are so promising that he rushed the study into the science journal while the obese mice are still alive. That raises some issues, including specific figures about mortality, but is understandable, said outside experts. The obese mice still lived past the median age for mice of their weight.

Even a would-be competitor is praising the study.

"This is fantastic," said Brown University molecular biology professor Stephen Helfand, who was the first reviewer for the journal Nature and not part of the team. "This is a historic landmark contribution."